2 Years after the release of "Klingon Academy II: The General War" comes a multiplayer/instant action expansion, "Klingon Academy II: Empire at War".
KA2: EAW takes the enhanced combat gameplay of KA2: The General War and adds a rich, detailed 'Empire Building' element to it. No longer can you quickly build up your forces. Now you must dedicate time and resources to research and development. This detailed system of hull, conversion packs, systems, weapons and other miscellaneous research also sheds light on the backstory behind KA2. Learn about the Klingon Empire designs her warships, how the Federation developed the massive Yamato Class, and discover the history of the Interstellar Concordium and the Tholian Assembly.
Each side has an expanded set of ship classes, and a mysterious new power has entered the galaxy. The Federation's worst fears are about to be realised...

Hello there, just a quick update to inform you that v1.3 Beta will soon be released. Still calling it a beta since it's only me doing the testing so, if there are bugs I promise I tried to eradicate them.

What's different in 1.3 you might ask? Well I like to keep a few surprises but, here is a basic outline.

- Two New Sides; The Hydran Kingdoms and the Lyran Star Kingdom.
- New Terran Empire NPCs that will either be found derelict or attack you on certain maps
- New Civilian freighters imported from Klingon Academy.
- Updated graphics for many iconic ships (Missouri, Yamato, Imperial Hawk, Senator etc) and for some stations (Federation Sensor Probe now uses the correct Klingon Academy model)
- Redone Computer voices for the Federation
- Resampled Music (Higher quality)
- New sound effects for station selection etc (taken from Armada I). Now each race has its own.
- Hero units for the Federation, ISC and Gorn Confederacy
- FleetOps inspired "Mixed Tech" (which I will explain below)
- Captured shipyards can now produce your races vessels (i.e if a Klingon player captures a Federation shipyard, he can build Klingon ships there as if it were his own shipyard)

For those unfamiliar with FleetOps and Mixed Tech, basically it gives you special rewards, units, powers etc when you either capture another races construction ship or are allied with them (varies based on "canon" alliances and conflicts). The only race that has no mixed tech, and no mixed tech based on them, is the Tholian Assembly for obvious reasons (they can neither capture nor be captured).

For example, the ISC is at war with...everyone, ergo they will need to capture construction tenders to get access to their mixed tech abilities and units. The Federation on the otherhand is at war with the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Lyran Star Kingdom and the ISC, but is allied with the Gorn Confederacy and the Hydran Star Kingdom. If they start off a game allied with the Gorn or the Hydrans, their Equipment Research Station has a Databank Research Project for the relevant power, which once researched gives access to otherwise hidden units.

A special case is the relationship between the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire. To simulate the changing relationship between them, they have both an "Allied" option and a "Capture" option. The Lyran Star Kingdom, staunch allies of the Klingon Empire, also has the dual Allied or Capture option with the Romulans.

Given as most of you will simply go straight to the tech tree files and look at who gets what anyways, I might as well tell you what each mixed tech does. Also, bear in mind that mixed tech combines together.

So as you can see, capturing your enemy's construction tenders, or choosing your allies carefully, can yield some powerful benefits. As mentioned, these stack, so if you were Lyran and allied with the Romulans, then captured an ISC Construction Tender, with the correct research undertaken your Wildcat Class Scout Frigates could Cloak AND have Subspace Jump Drives.

Now to the slightly dull bits. Installation remains the slight odd procedure it was before, but it's simple really and if you have 1.2 installed, all you need do is delete your KA2 EAW folder (inside the FleetOps Mod Folder) then install 1.3. I would not suggest installing it over a 1.2 install as this has not been tested.

I hope to eventually upgrade all the 3d models in KA2, polish it a bit further, work out some balancing issues etc as time goes by. I very much doubt 1.3 will be the final release but, it will be the last for a while (with the exception of bug fixes and such)

So, enjoy! By the time this news goes live it should be available for download.

Hey there, some bad news I'm afraid. I found out that if the enemy destroys something like the Constitution Refit Research Pod at the research station, you can't rebuild it :( Also, on and off, ships sometimes seem to refuse to hold still, moving around in broad loops despite there being nothing to attract their attention. Any chance this could be resolved with the patch project? I didn't install that this time, was afraid it might muck something up ^^;

Aye that's a weird little bug. I've encountered it before but i've not found a way to fix it. It's due to the way I "stacked" research objects on some stations to fit them in. I may simply make the research pods of a station untargetable to prevent this occurring (I can do that now with FleetOps)

The ship thing i've also encountered but I am puzzled as to why since aside from the very large ships this wasn't really an issue in A2 KA2, and the physics files haven't changed in the FleetOps version. Are there any ships that seem to do this particularly badly?

Off the top of my head, the only particular class I've noticed always doing it is the Klingon Troop Transport; I admittedly need to play with the other races more, been a bit attached to the Klingons ^^; btw I like how the fighter craft now automatically home in on the nearest carrier, it's a nice sight, several carriers going alone with swarms of fighters circling them >:3

I've been looking at it some more, I don't think it's decided by the particular ship type. I finally got all but one of my troop transports to hold still..not sure if this is good or bad news. I've noticed the movements are somewhat like the fighters as they give those broad loops, maybe something to do with that?

Loving the new version so far! :D So shiny and new cause of the graphics improvement, but with the gameplay style I enjoy! And the only bug I've come across so far is that the ship display at the bottom that shows the ships you've selected, it stops at eight ships, until you've selected seventeen ships, and then works normally. A very minor bug obviously, but figured I should report it.

Small update. The reason the 1.2 patch has been delayed is due to the fact I am converting the mod to run as a FleetOps Mod. There are many coding innovations in FleetOps that will significantly enhance KA2. Version 1.2 will now be a full release for FleetOps.

Unsure at this point. It's proving a little difficult to isolate what is a bug caused by the fact i've ported it over, and what is a bug caused by the original STA2 Classic Mod, and what is a bug caused by original code missing or altered by FleetOps.

Ships can still use attack patterns :) I've also revamped fighters, a lot of the advanced weapons, and introduced a system whereby the primary weapons on a ship will change target (if possible) each time they fire. So no more "everyone ganks the same ship" situations :)

Indeed, as fleets will engage one another rather than pounding each ship one at a time. :) Very pleased with it meself.

I've tweaked some weapons strength also. For example, compared to SFB Lore, the Fusion Beam was a tad weak and needed to be even shorter ranged. I found the Light and Medium PPDs to be too powerful, so i've changed their damage ratings accordingly (used to be L = 450, Medium = 600, Heavy = 800. Now it's L = 200, Medium = 400, Heavy = 800)

I've also managed to painstakingly import and remap the original pIH Class Battle Frigate from KA, the one with the bar-mounted Heavy Disruptors. I've used the same model with modified hardpoints and textures for the Romulan Finch, which now has a visible CFDIC in place of the Klingon Heavy Disruptors.